


Firebrand

by CaledonRetreat



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Other, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2019-08-09 13:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaledonRetreat/pseuds/CaledonRetreat
Summary: I've been on an Overwatch kick, so here's a half-baked OC that's been stuck in my head, written out here so I can have a log of whatever inspiration strikes. Not an actual fully fleshed-out story, more like drabbles. If someone enjoys it, cool stuff!





	1. Chapter 1

The meeting hadn’t been as scary as he had expected. Intimidating at first, being lead through parts of London he knew were dodgy at best to a place he didn’t recognise. It was an old industrial estate, a steel mill that had failed a few years ago, now abandoned. The men who gathered inside were gruff and burly, hard eyes set in angry faces. He stuck close to his contact and kept his mouth closed. Every now and then, one of the hard faces would catch his alien face in the crowd and give him a nod.

A muscly man with dark skin and a shaved-smooth head started shouting over the crowd from on top of a shipping crate. He talked a lot about losing his job and the crowd mumbled in agreement, but it was when he was talking about hope and change did the youngest set of ears prick. That was what he was here for, what he needed; change. He let his voice out and cheered with the crowd. No one ridiculed him or talked down to him. He even felt pats on his back, thumps on his arms. It felt like belonging.

At the end of the speech his contact lead him to the leader of the group, James, and they made their way to the back room. Suddenly, it was all very tense. James asked him question after question to make sure he was ready. The two strange men inside took up all of the room. A lumbering breathing strained through one’s mask, whilst the other gnawed his blackened fingernails. They smelled of cordite and burning.

“Can you get the chemicals?” the shorter one snapped in a foreign twang. Straight to the point. He told them he could. They told him where to leave them and left without saying anything more. His contact led him back to the bus station and gave him a serious nod before leaving. No going back now. The camaraderie of the meeting gave him confidence, those men were depending on him.

He used his dad’s keycard to get into the lab when there wasn’t a lot of staff, and he walked about like he knew what he was doing. He let himself into the chemical storage with no trouble and filled up his rucksack. Stinking fuel oil, peroxides, all manner of dangerous-smelling liquids. It took three trips to get it all, afternoons of sweating from fear and exhaustion, but he did it.

They were taken off him at the warehouse. On the third day, the two men were there. He didn’t dare speak to them as the scrawny one tore at his backpack to scoop out the final chemicals he needed. He stared at them with a growing smile, nodding and laughing to himself.

“Premium stuff, how fancy,” he sneered. “Just make sure you make plenty of smoke kid, we’ll be counting on you.” They took the chemicals and turned.

“You’ll be there at the right time?” he croaked. The two men turned slowly, as if they didn’t understand what he said.

“Course we will!” beamed the small one. “Wouldn’t leave a mate behind, would we?” He turned to the hulking man for approval, but the tower of meat merely grunted. The shorter man winked and left. He felt his stomach sink a little.

Tears stung his eyes when he put the environmental hazard suit on. It smelled like dad’s deodorant. Dead. He’d make them pay, make it right. Change the way things were. Someone from the group had brought him the weapon that evening and left without a word. It was up to him to figure it out. The bomb-maker had made it, that much was obvious. It was welded from bits of rusty pipe, but it would do. The tanks were heavy and he had to fit extra straps to carry it at a jog. He’d seen mum carry three times this weight in full parade gear, he wouldn’t disappoint her by moaning.

A van came to pick him up once it got late. He waddled to the back doors and clambered in, praying he wouldn’t explode every time they hit a speedbump. They kept stopping and the sounds of crowds shouting were getting louder. People thumped the van and shouted vague encouragement. Broken furniture rattled along the van deck, along with a bit of mirror. He picked it up and caught his reflection when they stopped under a street lamp. An emotionless bug-eyed mask stared back at him, bound in yellow plastic and covered in straps. He didn’t even recognise himself.

The van turned sharply and two masked men opened the door, dragging him out. They righted him and pushed him forwards, a crowd of men like those at the meeting cheering and screaming in the road. Police sirens in the distance, bright lights shimmering against his eye lenses, a world of colour muted and muffled by his mask and his hot breath. James was shouting at the crowd that barely heard him, pointing at him. He couldn’t hear the words, but the gesture was clear.

He turned a valve and felt the pack hiss eagerly. Gripping the slender barrel tightly, he braced himself and squeezed the trigger. A flash of light seared his eyes and made him flinch, and the crowd started roaring louder. Adrenaline flooded through him and he numbly squeezed the trigger again. Another gout of liquid flame erupted from the nozzle of the jury-rigged flamethrower, spattering burning oil higher onto the statue. After a few tries, the statue of Tekhartha Mondatta had turned into an effigy.

Helicopters, must’ve been police, roared overheard and raked the crowd with searchlights. The fights nearby were getting worse and rocks were being banging off the helicopters. Metal canisters were dropping into the crowd. Thick gas was wafting over the whole scene, men were running, pushing, coughing, falling. Fighting fell into chaos and he was left alone and dazed as the demonstration broke apart. He panted heavily but the mask kept out the tear gas. Police were pushing through the smoke in a huddled line, scratched shields and batons raised in a neat, powerful line.

Helmets turned to him, slowed, stopped. Confusion made them hesitate. A hazmat suit, some kind of applicator? Chemical support, fire brigade? An officer broke from the line and he nearly wet himself. But they weren’t being aggressive, he was gesturing behind the police line, to safety. He didn’t realise what he’d done… he could get out of this.

A glint of metal in the firelight. Cables and pistons where flesh and blood should have been. An omnic telling him what to do. They would find the flammables in the tank, he’d be handing himself over, the cover would only last minutes at most. With animal panic, he levelled the flamethrower at the omnic. An apology began to form in his mind before the tongue of fire erupted. The officer barely raised his shield before it hit him, a smoking inferno coating him entirely.

The police wavered and jumped, the nearest rushing forwards to drag their comrade back to safety. The omnic burned and beat at the flames furiously as the shimmering, clanking line of police formed up against him. They were pointing, shouting, crowds were cheering, bottles were shattering. He pulled the trigger again and again, tiny gutters of flame crashing against the shields harmlessly and sending confused panic into the line. More rocks, more bottles, petrol bombs crashing all around the police, oxygen fuelling the blaze.

He turned and bashed his mask back into place when the riotters swelled back to the fight. The sweat in his eyes stung, but he saw well enough what was going on. He’d missed the statue at some point, the tightly-packed terraces behind it belching smoke. The houses were on fire, people running out clutching children and pets and things. Smoke circled all over the sky and tormented helicopters, fire was everywhere, and the wail of sirens and screaming voices never stopped for a moment.

His world rolled and he thought he was fainting. He was being pulled bodily up and dragged back into the same van he’d arrived him, but the crew was different. He looked up to see a the man in the pig-snout mask above him, the wild-eyed man at the wheel. Bags were stacked in the corner, swag from their heist. The floor was slick with he didn’t want to know what.

“You’ve got a knack for this, kidda!” shouted the scrawny man. The tips of his hair smouldered slightly and his face was covered in soot. “Keep your flashlight. Might come in handy one day!”

Identical dummy vans raced with them through the city, passing checkpoints held by the demonstrators… the rioters, at blinding speed. Through the smoke at the statue they lost the helicopters quickly, resources struggling to accommodate the scale of the violence. The ride through the city passed by in an aching blur. It was almost morning when they dumped him near his house. He had to scuttle back through some of the lanes with the last of his energy for fear of being seen, but everyone was still asleep.

He let the sweat-lined suit and cumbersome pack hit the floor. He tore off the mask and gulped the air. Weapons discarded on the doormat, he made for his bed and stripped along the way. It was early afternoon when he woke up. He still wasn’t hungry but he shovelled down cereal anyway. He took his time in the shower, the grease in his hair just wouldn’t come out.

Everything passed in a dazed dream until he turned on the tele. Every news channel was talking about the riots, and front-and-centre in every story, the statue. The paint was stripped, the base charred and chipped and tagged with bright spray paints. Slurs and threats to the omnics that called the area home. It hadn’t toppled but that wasn’t the intention; it was about sending a message.

At the end of every story they circulated a picture. It was marred by smoke and the helicopter sway, but he didn’t struggle to make it out; a line of jelly fire spurting onto the statue from the hands of a formless yellow figure.

It made a pit in his stomach to have been seen, but all the police and experts said the same thing; they didn’t know who it was. No connections, no known terrorists, Talon didn’t take credit. The arsonist was a total enigma. It made him giddy, made his leg bounce on the spot. 

Omnics left scared for their safety after the riots garbled their worries to camera. Emotionless metal shells squeaking a mockery of human emotions. Humans spoke along with them with fierce and defiant expression talking about how they weren’t scared by the riots. Weren’t scared but here they were, out in fearful droves to show how they weren’t scared. Tin men as much as the omnics.

He thought back to his mother. She’d died in urban fighting. A brutal struggle against the machines in the worst conditions. Innocent hostages used as shields, bombs left in safe spots. His father, murdered at his boring work by thieves stealing technology and chemicals. He wondered how many of these brave people walking in the crowd with peace signs had the luxury of not feeling this way.

The Omnic Crisis hadn’t stopped, just like James said a few nights before. It never stopped, it just changed. They went from winning all over the glove to losing. Overwatch. They waved the white flag and sent their tin men with human smiles to the cities. They were welcomed and fighting started again in the heart of humanity. Plague rats sent to kill them. Why was everyone so blind to that?

The tele called his group lunatics and morons. Commentators referred to the firebrand leadership and tactics used to scare people. They didn’t get it, they didn’t want to get it. They had to lose something to get it. But that word… the moment he heard it, he knew it was part of him. 

He looked to the suit and mask by the door. Two shiny black lenses looking back at him. A blurry yellow figure setting fire to the enemy’s stranglehold, burning out the disease.

Firebrand.

A city running scared. A single act of defiance. A black mask, no pity in its eyes.

“I’m Firebrand.”


	2. Firebrand Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I like the short sentences, it's giving a feel for the character in a way I didn't expect. I hope it's not obnoxious to read, nts - get someone to proof-read.

He was a hero now. For weeks they clapped him on the back and cheered when he walked in, made sure he was at the front of the crowd at every meeting. James even put him on stage to speak after the fire. He assumed there would be a speech but he kept it short, sticking to his rehearsed lines. He waxed lyrical a little and he could see that it wasn’t landing quite the way he thought it would. Didn’t matter, they got it. If anything, how different he was to them made them see him as a hero even easier.

Not that it mattered. They were all in the same boat. Working-class, jobless, downtrodden, made a sense of community. Ex-soldiers, orphans, same difference, failed by the same system. There were different faces here now. The riots saw lots of them arrested for public unrest and damage, but they’d gained a name for themselves. People saw that they didn’t have to just take what the government said, they could resist.

He’d joined a boxing club. Needed to get stronger if he was going to do it again, and one of the lads there owned a gym. It was a few stops away but he had nothing but time these days. Self-conscious at first, after a month or so he could start to see the difference. He didn’t treat himself well, but muscle was starting to hide visible bone. Most of all he was confident. He still cringed whenever he saw the family photo, that pain hadn’t gone away, but now he had a goal. It made him feel complete again.

He’d cleaned the suit since, taped it in places there was slack. It was scratchy but it fit better. He’d tightened the mask and practiced putting it on, pulling it over his eyes and lifting his head to get it on quicker. It was a wonder the police gas hadn’t choked him back then, mask wasn’t even fit right.

James gave him a ride home from a meeting one night. People were turning up less and less, forgetting the cause or getting caught by the police on weird things. They were planning another demonstration, and naturally he was in on it. They didn’t talk much when it was just the two of them, but he felt at ease with James. He was still a bit scared of him, he had that gravity, but he had to admit he looked up to the guy. The sort who just was a leader.

James swore under his breath and slammed the brake. He was a black cab driver before he was a soldier, so the backroads and alley were fair game. This was supposed to be an access road between two sets of catering companies, but a row of bins had rolled into the road.

The window smashed and everything happened so quickly and smoothly it might as well have been a film. The driver-side door was pulled open so hard it almost came off the hinges, James was dragged out. He was fighting, not a weak man, but it was useless. He could hear him struggling on the floor, shouting and swearing.

High-vis vests were running down the street and shouting in authoritative voices. Police. In a split-second decision he wrenched his seat-belt free and threw himself against the door. He wasn’t three steps towards the end of the side road before someone grabbed him. He felt the plasticy blocks of knuckle padding against his ribs, the sort that riot police wore. The single fist pushed him against the wall and pinned him.

Liquid weight slithered down to his fingers and he froze in place. James was still shouting at the police who were hauling him away, but the man in front of him didn’t say a thing. He was huge, thick arms bolted to a broad chest. A shining slat visor looking down at him. Not police. Who?

The man got up in his face. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled.

“Nothing,” he said. His lips were shaking but hopefully he sounded convincing. He probably didn’t. The tall man grunted and let go. He turned away and followed the police.

“Go home, kid,” he said. A fire lit inside his chest. The man was wearing a sort of crash jacket, like a rally driver, a big 76 on the back. They’d taken James but not him.

“Don’t you turn your back on me,” he breathed. An empty bottle on the floor. He bent for it and could already hear the pop of it hitting the man in the jacket. And then he was gone, the police in their car, James’ car still running.

Getting back home didn’t take long, about an hour. All the way he was fuming. Humiliated by a stranger. He wanted to get back at that man in the jacket. They’d taken James and that was bad enough, but the man in the jacket had outright disrespected him. The lads at the group messed with him, took the piss, but that was rough jokes. They were like a family, in a weird sort of way, and he was one of them. That guy? He was a little pissant to that guy.

For whatever reason, the lads listened to him now. Maybe James talked him up or something, he didn’t know. Either way when he got up on that box, they all shut up. He laid out the plan, taking inspiration from the bomb makers he’d met last time. He planned it for a Monday after work, so it’d be quiet on the streets and empty inside.

They gathered like he said, started a few fights and drew a bit of attention but it’d have to do. They’d do what they were here for. He knew the hardcores from sitting in with James, and those were the lads he relied on. They were wild but… they’d do for this. The crowd held up their flags and blocked the road around the city hall of London.

He walked to the demonstration and got swallowed quickly by the crowd. His gear was waiting for him in the middle of the bodies. He dressed in it quickly and felt the adrenaline start to flow as he sealed the mask over his face. He wasn’t a scared child anymore.

At the signal the hardcores tore towards the front door. He watched them work. They weren’t petty vandals, they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t a minute before the glass windows and doors buckled. They ran in and dragged the security guys out. They’d called the police already so they’d have to be quick. They came back in with petrol drums and got to work pouring it over all the office desks upstairs.

By the time the police cars had pushed through the blocked roads leading to the waterfront, the city hall was burning up. All the glass windows made a cage for the fire and the crowd had dispersed.

He got a lift back to his house before the fire had started proper, watched it on the tele when he got in. It was satisfying to see the reports the next morning. Less people got caught this time, only a few arrests. Officers injured and a few cars rolled, and most of the lads had gotten away with their balaclavas. The building was gutted, damaged by the heat. It’d take months to rebuild.

He’d done it. He’d organised it, planned it, pulled it off, and hadn’t got caught. People were already talking about the group again, the usual backlash. But they were talking, and any publicity was good publicity. The group meetings would get bigger now.

Was he the leader now? No one had heard from James, it wasn’t like the tele. He wasn’t a gangster running an empire from his cell, he was a big fat bloke in his late 40’s inside for civil unrest.

I did it better. The thought came and went quickly, but it stuck just long enough to make him smile. It’d been so hard not to leave some evidence behind to show off to the guy in the jacket, but he’d seen the documentaries; murderers who actually want to get caught gloat like that. Firebrand wasn’t a known name, right now he was a petty criminal like any other nutter with enough tech to make up a name and have their five minutes of fame.

He let the news stroke his ego for a bit and turned it off. A bit of research on the internet didn’t give him much useful information, but every now and then there were rumours of a vigilante in a hi-tech visor. Others had seen the 76 too. He didn’t add to any forums, what a stupid move that’d be, but clearly James had been snagged by a pro. It made him giddy to think of that guy now, tracking James down to stop his half-arsed street fights, only to give the pissant he underestimated carte blanche to take over.

No. He wasn’t a terrorist. He wasn’t a thug. That’s what they thought he was. He was his mum’s son. He had his dad’s nose. He was going to save people, and the end would justify the mean. He’d do this so others didn’t have to. He’d change this heartless new world, give people the boot up their arse they needed. They were starting to see it now, starting to talk, but it was nowhere near enough. They all needed to rise together to get rid of the tin men. Rise together, or they’d fall together.

His cocky smile went after he saw the picture of him, mum, and dad. He thought about seeing a doctor. He rarely had much energy and even after the statue, even after the city hall job he’d pulled off, he still felt… empty.


	3. Score of the Decade

“Well if it isn’t the little kidda! Had a feeling we’d be seeing you again,” said the lanky man. When he wasn’t stooping, he really was a giant. “You’ll be needing a name if you want to join this crew of professionals for good. So wadda we call ya?”

“Firebrand,” the words come awkwardly. “Just call me Firebrand.” The gangly bomb maker stuck out his filthy hand.

“Mr. Jamison Junkrat, Esquire. And my acquaintance here’s Roady. That’s Roadhog on paper.” As usual, the behemoth said nothing. “Now that the formalities are outta the way, we best get to work. Give up the goods kidda, what’s the score?”

“Bloke who comes to the group heard about this gallery. Good part of London, pretty small in the scheme of things so not much security. Turns out that there’s jewels heading there, moving out of an exhibition in the city to be shipped to India next morning. There’ll be some other stuff in there but the jewels there have got some history, worth a pretty penny, safety deposit boxes too.” Junkrat held up a finger to stop him.

“You’ve got promise but I’m not risking my hide on some goose chase. Never trust a man who doesn’t have a stake in the take kidda, we’ve made that mistake before. What’s in it for you?” Firebrand chewed his lip.

“The gallery is a museum to the social history of omnics since the uprising. Famous pictures, early portraits. It’s meant to be this hopeful piece about social progress but it just pisses on everything.” He stopped and took a quiet breath. “Harlinger Street. Rough fighting during the crisis, whole set of houses got bombed out there. All those skeletons underneath the pavement and they reckon it’s a class idea to make a museum about the lot that killed them.”

Junkrat swirled his tongue around his teeth a few times. “Alright kidda, we’re not gonna turn our noses up at honest work. But if you feed us rubbish I’ll guarantee you that the outcome won’t be pretty for you, capiche?” Firebrand nodded silently.

“How long do you need?”

“How long? How long he asks!” Junkrat snorted. He produced a off-white line of putty from his pocket. “Always keep a bit of shaped on me.” Firebrand slung his sports bag onto the table and unzipped it. His suit glowed like luminous gold.

“Tanks are in my car. We can get there in a few hours.” Junkrat met his eye, saw behind the dull grey-blue irises and saw a fire burning in him.

“You know, I’m starting to like you kidda.”

The ride there was oddly calm. He was driving and the other two looked cramped in his little Fiat. he hadn’t told them about the house. Wasn’t there business, and this was a proper job night. Still, he wanted to tell someone at least. They’d got that house cheap, amazing considering where it was in London. Some earl had it built so many centuries ago, point was it was nice and isolated. It’d been a boon to Firebrand these past few months, no one to nosey on him coming back at all hours in that great big suit. Who gave a shit that it was burning to the foundations?

He’d triple-checked that he’d taken the photo of his family. It was tucked away in his vest where it couldn’t get lost. When he’d put the place to light and watched the fire take, it struck him that he still felt empty. He’d fantasised that there would be this sort of “cleansed” feeling. Starting over, fresh slate, that sort of thing. Instead, he just felt empty. So he got in his car and left without looking back.

The car damn near broke when the big bloke, Roadhog, climbed out. A guy in a suit was waiting for the shutters to roll over the gallery door when he saw them coming, three weirdos strolling along. He just about finished putting his tanks on when he saw Roadhog pull the gun from his hip and level the barrel at the suit’s head.

Took all the adrenaline and quick feet to put himself between the gun and the suit. He held his hand up to the barrel like it would protect his face from the buckshot. The suit was practically crying.

“No no, not him!” Firebrand shouted through his mask. “No human shootings!” The man took his chance and legged it. Junkrat had hefted the shutter up and ran ahead. Roadhog lowered the barrel slowly and Firebrand shivered when he pulled out the hook instead. Roadhog put one massive fist on his shoulder and dragged him close. The hook was right in his face. The pig face bored into him with its stitched smile.

“Life is pain,” warned the hulking man. It was the first time he’d heard him speak. His voice was really low, and the accent was hard to place. The hook pressed against his throat. He saw his reflection in the mask, his own blank bug-eyed face an echo of the murderer’s. “So is death.”

He felt the trickle of hot piss running down his leg. He didn’t want to die like this, throat torn out and left to choke. The snout snorted heavily and Roadhog released him. He took a minute for himself outside to compose himself.

The words were still in his head at the end of the night. The jewels were there all right, stuffed in a bag unceremoniously. There were hostages already dealt with and tied up by the time he’d gotten in. He’d been busy laying out the petrol and piling up all the pictures to see it. The junkers were in the cellar. Junkrat said the bombs were ready to blow. They were gonna level the building. His idea; it’d send a message.

They sent him to check on the hostages. Not just tin men. People. Ropes tying them up so tight their hands were purple. They were all shouting for help when he opened the door. Shut up once they saw him. He was glad the mask was there and didn’t say anything when he walked in. Not saying anything meant they wouldn’t hear his voice crack. To them he was one of the thieves, a sexless mute with a flamethrower who was here to…

To what? What now? Shit there weren’t supposed to be people here! This was an omnic gallery, only tin men in here. He was going to scare them off, burn their building right in front of them. A message. Not crush them in the rubble, sure as shit not alongside humans.

Footsteps and shouting in the gallery. Junkrat was telling him to light the fire and leave, wherever he was. Bombs going off in two minutes, ready or not. Compassionate. The hostages were crying through their gags now. Had they seen him hesitate? The tin men were wailing. No mouths to gag meant they could still blurt out English in that tinny, grumbly way they did. Made his skin crawl. A chain tide through their arms and padlocked kept them in a circle.

He couldn’t kill people, he wasn’t ready for that. But if he let one go, they’d all struggle out, tin men included. Kill the tin men? No not kill, can’t kill what’s not alive. Break. One was missing an arm, not saying anything. He felt a jolt of sympathetic sickness at the missing limb, the way it was hunched. The one in front of him was still talking at him. Talking like a hero in a film, all soft and in control. This wasn’t the tele, telling him he wasn’t a murderer isn’t what real people did.

He wouldn’t calm down, he wouldn’t be told what to do anymore. This had to change. No matter the price. The pressure seal broke with a twist and Firebrand pointed the nuzzle at the omnic’s howling face. It can’t feel pain. It can’t feel pain. It’s not alive. It’s not real. Tin man. Murderer.

He was so empty it hurt. Hollow like the eyes of his mask. Black circles staring into him.

Junkrat and Roadhog were outside. They’d been waiting for the fireworks and were getting bored when he walked out. The inside was burning and the fire alarm had gone off.

“Was wondering where you’d gone kidda,” said Junkrat. Firebrand threw a bundle of wires at him. He threw his mask on the floor next. This had to be face-to-face.

“This was supposed to be about sending a message,” he shouted in the voice he used with the group. It sounded weak to his ears now. “Why’d you make bombs to destroy the building?” Junkrat’s eyes widened and his teeth showed.

“You wrecked me bombs?! What’s wrong with you, there’s supposed to be fireworks!”

“Dead hostages and rubble aren’t the point, I can’t make my point if the witnesses are dead!”

Roadhog pushed him. Tapped him, really. Knocked him flat on his arse and winded him. He’s pissed them off. Good. He was pissed off too. He pushed himself up and leaned on the car for breath. Junkrat was already walking off to make his escape before the police showed up. Roadhog was there still. He could tell because there was no light shining on him.

The man was standing stock still as usual. Just his fat breath making his belly wobble and his grinning mask staring at him.

“What?” he said. No reply, he just stood there. “What? Got your gig, fuck off.” Still nothing. He leaned down and pulled on his mask. It made him tingle to turn his back on the giant. 

The monster of a man could’ve done almost anything right there and then and it wouldn’t have mattered at all. But somewhere in his messed up head he’d planned he. He slowly turned without a word and walked away. It was a goad that hit Firebrand in his wounded pride. He was so angry, still trying to change things. Nothing was working, he wouldn’t get anywhere whilst there was still one prick who showed their back, who turned their nose up at him, at the truth.

He couldn’t put down the anger, couldn’t let it go. There was an empty anger and the fire inside, nothing else. He dropped to his knees next to his pack where he’d dropped it and scrambled for the barrel. He jammed the trigger. The pavement went up and the recoil carried the flame higher like he’d hoped. 

Pavement, parking meter, car bonnet, belt, skin. The gout hit open air and he let go of the trigger. Somewhere in the back of his mind he hoped he’d hear the man scream, to hear something come from that mask.

Weird what you focus on just before something bad happens. The cars mounted the curb when the man charged through them. He knew he was going to die when the light caught the lenses of the pig snout. Too close, too fast, too big. Nothing he could do. All he could do was count the stretch marks on his belly. Looks like a kick would do the deed.

The pain was like nothing he could have ever imagined. He worried that he’d catch on fire one day. Burn alive. Bad way. The worst, probably. This must have been a close second. He felt the vibrations all the way to his back, popping and shaking in his chest. Ribs breaking all the way through and a deep snap along his sternum. Felt like a wide knife jammed into the bone and wiggled. White-hot heat all through his chest.

The flight took ages, and the ground could’ve waited. He black out instantly from the pain when he landed on his back. He came to seconds later but it felt like he’d woken up from a long sleep. He could see the building breaking up from the heat. At least it’d be over quick, judging by the breaking strut over his head.

He thought about mum and dad. He thought about the jacket guy who he never got to prove wrong. He thought about the junkers who were in it for the money and killed him. He thought about the lads who didn’t have enough money to pay for heating who needed him. He thought about the omnics he’d cut from the chains with some bolt cutters and let run away from the job that was supposed to free people and change the system. He thought about the job, the job, the job and the attitude that got him killed.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Heat melting the suit. Head getting fuzzy.

He wasn’t a hero.

He wasn’t a revolutionary.

He wasn’t a martyr.

He was an idiot.


	4. Talon

An animal part of him had kicked in at some point. Just survive. Survive. Keep breathing. In. out. They’ll find you. Someone. Survive. Anyone. Survive. Base concepts and instincts going through his head. When someone had come to him he was barely conscious. They’d told him after the fact what he’d said to the person who’d rescued him. It stank of a lie, but he knew it’d be true, given the state he was in.

You are going to die. Stay here, and do so. Or come with us, and you’ll live to see another day.

His choice was apparent. The first time he saw himself he cried. The second time he’d sicked up until his spit was red. He’d avoided mirrors in his rehabilitation.

“The suit you were wearing was designed to protect against corrosive material and airborne particulates,” a nurse had explained. “Not the temperatures you were exposed to. We attempted to remove it carefully but we did what was necessary to keep you alive.”

Weirdly enough, he thought of mum. She threw a fit when he talked about getting a tattoo. His precious skin, she’d said. Would she recognise the mottled, scarred monster he saw in the mirror?

They’d augmented his voice to make up for the damage. There was a metallic twinge to it now, it was so much effort to get the noises out. His chest… he didn’t even know. The woman who talked to him, the doctor, Irish one, said they’d replaced most things in there. The skin there was smooth and was obviously not real, cool to touch. It made him feel not real, he sort of wondered if he had actually died. He couldn’t feel his breath.

I can’t feel my heart.

The psychologists were an endless resource. Almost every day they’d come and talk to him whilst the doctors and nurses gave him injections. Immune system, they’d said, for the burns. Anesthetic for the pain, anti-rejection drugs for the implants, that sort of thing. Bullshit. It made him drowsy. They subtly asked him to do things and he’d do them.

It made him angry.

They were collecting freaks. Wherever they were, it was underground. No windows, stairs led up and down without end, thick concrete walls everywhere. They let him wander most places, not that people acted out. There was a golden rule about, like a threat of undeniable authority that hung over the rest of the freaks. The guards didn’t need guns to be scary, they just had to be around.

He’d been shot once or twice. The psychologists and the staff soldiers who came to talk to him about fulfilling his end of the bargain were inspiring. He hated that they had that power over him, but it was true. He wanted to serve them and it made his skin crawl. 

They talked about strength in a funny way. That way that inspirational athletes talk about it. ‘It’s in the mind’, that sort of thing. They’d said that he didn’t need to be bulky or heavy, he just needed to trust himself. They told him to stand up and put his back against the wall. He did it.

Like a kid waiting for an injection, they just did it before he could start wriggling. The staff sergeant pulled the handgun from his belt and shot him square in the chest. He flinched and jumped, but realised he’d been had. He weakly swore at the sergeant, tried to mumble something about firing blanks through shivering teeth.

He’d kept the bullet. It’d fallen to the bottom of his shirt, flattened under its own force as it had hit his chest, a messy pancake of hot metal. He didn’t need to ask how he’d survived, the Irish woman came in at the gunshot.

His ribs were gone, replaced with flexible plastic. There was an overlay of lightweight sterile metal. His blood had been replaced with an artificial substitute. He was, in many ways, more than human.

Why didn’t it feel like that, then? He felt sick. Wrong.

The synthetic skin was torn but that was all, no damage and no denting on his new bones. A murky grey scab formed that day and was gone by the next. They called it promising at least, a near-miracle at best.

The “trust” exercises continued. They were hardening him, turning him into a soldier, and he let it in. It took almost two months, all in. One of the soldiers was standing a short five metres across from him. Medical staff and suits watched with plastic goggles. The soldier waited for a signal and pulled the slide of the rifle, aiming for his center of mass.

I do not need to be strong. I must simply do what is asked. I will not step back. I will not flinch.

 

The man shot him. He felt the shock shake his bones. His heel shifted back for balance, but that was all. He squinted against the noise and the flash, but that was all.

He handed a piece of shrapnel to the towering black guy who was watching, the one who had pulled him out of the wreckage. His eyes were glassy and focused on him, he could almost see the ruined skin of his face reflected. They stared at one another. The man smiled.

“You are ready to join us, then?” he asked in a booming voice made royal with an African twang. Firebrand nodded. “Do you understand what you are getting yourself into, young man?”

Firebrand gestured towards the broken piece of bullet. The man shook his head.

“This is not what I am referring to. Perhaps you are brave. Perhaps you are reckless. I have seen many men die, not because they are not brave, but because they do not have it in themselves to do what must be done. Understand that I cannot make the pain go away.”

That caught him off-guard. Shit, he could feel his eyes watering. The psychologists picked at that part of him. That empty part that had become normal. He didn’t mention it often.

“Yes, I can see it in you. You are not the only one to be wounded in this way,” continued the man. “It is now part of you, and nothing will change that. But I can show you how to use it, and with that pain and that anger you will be able to bring justice to your family’s memory and help us in changing the world. I will ask you one more time, are you ready?”

“Yes. I’m ready.”

He didn’t sleep that night. Kept replaying it all over in his head.

He could barely remember what it was like going to school. What had his friends looked like? It was hard to say.

The numbness of his chest was the norm now. Still weird, but slipping under his radar steadily. They’d let him keep the picture he’d brought with him. He looked at it now. It was damaged but he could still make out his parents, their smiles.

Burnt plastic had damaged his bit of the picture. Could make out the legs but nothing else, not even the face.

What had he looked like?

It was hard to say.

Now there was just the fire, and the big empty.

Two hollow eyes. Shiny dark circles that swallowed him whole.


	5. Chapter 5

_What is the last thing you remember before Talon found you?_

_I… I don’t know. I was hurting._

_What do you mean ‘hurting’?_

_It… I’m too tired._

_What do you mean you were ‘hurting’?_

_It was hot. Too hot. But cold, like… like nothing._

_Anything else?_

_I remember… London. I was in London._

_And what do you remember about London?_

_I was in London… and it was burning. I could see London and… it… it…_

_We’re losing him. Another 50mg. Can you hear me? You saw London burning._

_London was burning, and it was… beautiful._

 

It had come out of the dark hangar like a nightmare. He would’ve run away, if it wasn’t for the big empty. A gangly thing on blocky insect legs that skulked like it didn’t clear two metres high easily. He swore he felt his artificial organs move.

The thing stopped and stood there. The PhDs introduced him to it like it could hear. He felt the fire boiling up in him, like he could spit fire at it.

He told them where they could stick it. A soldier hit him for that, square in the side of his head with his gun. His ear hummed and he remembered where he was and who he was talking to. He didn’t say anything more but they saw his sour-arse expression.

Why would he work with a tinman? This wasn’t change, just more of the same.

“Sometimes we must fight fire with fire, no?” one of them asked. “You do as you are ordered, and it will take care of the rest.”

The silent metal giant said nothing.

They took him to his new suit next. It was a black thing that looked expensive, all sleek and matte. It fit onto him like a second skin and hooked over his scalp a bit, a little ruffled on the outside for some high-tech reason. It sat nice and even and he felt a kind of calm he couldn’t describe. Safe? No it was kind of familiar…

Belonging. He belonged in this.

They gave him the pack. It was smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient, all the improvements expected of Talon. He put in on. The burden felt good.

He walked to the plane at the door of the hangar. The tick tick tick of metal cat paws was like nails on a board, that hulking thing following him like a dog. He instinctively checked his weapon.

The big guy, Doomfist, was waiting by himself at the plane cargo door. The VTOL rotors shook his clothes but the mountain of augmented man stayed perfectly still. He was wearing stylish circular glasses tinted black, suited for a party.

Firebrand couldn’t look at his face. The reflection, he couldn’t do it. Like dad correcting his tie for his formal back in high school, the man produced a mask and pressed it gently to his face. The rim sensed the bodysuit over his head and sucked onto it for an uncomfortable moment.

In. Out. Breathe. There it was. He could hear it now, hissing in and out of the ventilator.

He was breathing. He was alive, thanks to the mask.

How long had it been since he had felt this human? This alive?

He looked up and smiled at what he saw; reflected in Doomfist’s glasses was a mask. A mask of dark material, an inhuman hatched mouth that hissed as he drew air.

Two dark eyes that stared back impassively. Two voids that drew him in, bug-like and sleek. The voids felt like home and he felt the big empty stir.

This was it. The psychiatrists had told him he’d find it; the quiet and dark place on the inside that fit. He stepped up the cargo ramp and sunk into himself.

_I can hear it ticking._ The machine-man sat across from him. The empty kept him safe, and the fire was cool. 

_I can hear it ticking and scratching in my chest, like a metal heartbeat. How long has it been this way?_

He reached instinctively for the picture by his chest. There was no pocket. It wasn’t there.

He looked at his hand, sleek and black. He looked at the tall metal thing across from him. It stared at him with its eyeless face and the big empty yawned wide.

 

The plane set down in the middle of nowhere and left just as quickly. A few operatives met him and led him closer to the target. The machine ran off like an animal free of a cage the moment the ramp went down, not that he cared.

The operatives were undercover, so they weren’t coming with him. They left without saying anything to him, nor did he care to say anything to them. The hike had been long but at least the scenery was nice; a rural bit of France. The dossier said that some so-and-so who had info on Talon lived here. Not good for them.

The dossier said she worked with omnics. Questionable, how truthful that was. He’d take the front gate, like he’d been told. He strolled along the grass and it almost felt like home for a minute. A tall metal fence ringed the house with a little booth behind the gate for a night porter.

The guy inside got up when he saw someone coming close in the early hours. He could make out the panic in the man’s face when the guy saw a figure in black with a weapon walking slowly towards him.

Then he was gone. The LED light on the gate made it look all pale, everything above the man’s waist turned to pink mist with nothing but a thyoom. The legs fell over, it was almost comical. It didn’t look real, but the thick blood that poured onto the damp tarmac said otherwise. The drizzle had let up for now, best get going.

The electronic gate should have only opened when that bloke authorized it. That was the point of security, after all. But it opened for him, swishing open quietly and sweeping the disembodied legs off to one side like a grim street sweeper.

“On the grounds,” he whispered. The mic inside his mask picked it up and sent it back to the operatives. Two metallic clicks sounded in his ears from the tiny speakers in the body glove. It almost made him shiver; that was the tinman speaking to him. As much as it could. Telling him it understood, like it was alive.

Two people roared down the tarmac in a noisy little ATV the gardeners used. More security that saw their co-worker die on the camera. A needle of light was visible for all of an instant and the whole thing went up in a fireball. They didn’t have enough time to think about how they died and the husk of a vehicle carried whatever was left of them off onto the grass.

Two more clicks in his ear.

Staff were running out and screaming for help, others being quiet and scampering off like little rabbits hoping they wouldn’t just pop like the first three guys. They got away alright. They were just people working a job for their families. He fought for them, to change things for them.

Security wasn’t so lucky. The big estate’s walls and windows kept blowing open in puffs of glass and brick, a man or three dying each time. All the while he walked slowly up the long driveway, letting it all unfold.

A woman came at him with a knife. Wailing like a banshee might’ve worked on hoodlums, but what did he care? He stopped and stood his ground. No needle came to turn her to a puddle, and none of her mates came to help neither.

She stopped just short of him. Her voice died in her throat and her hand started to shake. He just stood there, not doing anything. Her confidence faded in the face of the mask, he could tell. The eyes did it. They took her will to fight and her wont to kill and just drew it away. She dropped the knife and ran past him for the gate.

By the time he walked through a set of doors into the building, the house was mostly empty. Dead people were spattered and dismembered in all sorts of gory ways across from neat holes in the wall, but he didn’t pay them much mind.

He got lost twice, but he found it eventually. No rush. A big set of doors led to an office with a very expensive set of cabinets. Nice stuff. Shame the illusion of class was broken by the great metal door fitted into one of the walls.

Panic rooms didn’t open for anyone but the distressed and their rescuers. That was what the woman inside thought. For a second, she felt relieved tears sting her eyes as the panels and systems beeped and chirped happily as codes were accepted, and metal deadlocks groaned back into life and released.

It wasn’t the gendarmerie. It wasn’t Helix Security. The door swung open slowly and a slight figure was stood there. It was made frumpy and indistinct by its clothing, a full suit of black material. She recognised a gasmask of odd proportions, and a fearsome barrel that patiently burbled a splinter of blue flame.

Behind the bug-eyed individual who had no doubt come to burn her alive for her gall at revealing information on Talon’s command was a creature of freakish proportions. Square bird-kneed legs supported a blocky torso, from which hung freakishly long limbs with several digits each. Its head was a jumbled sphere of smooth edges, but she had the strange feeling it was watching her in more ways than with eyes it didn’t appear to have.

It was mirroring the person in front of it, an enormous weapon crooked casually in its arms, a towering wraith, a long shadow cast by a dark soul.

She felt a slight pang of relief when the machine moved first. It unlimbered itself with fluid grace, swinging the barrel of what must have been its gun up and over the human’s shoulder; at least it would be quick.

She glared through her frightened tears at the person in the suit, pouring her hatred for this black organisation into those dark lenses. It stood stock still, as if its eyes drank in her hate and snuffed it like a desperate flame. The machine keyed the trigger, and she was dead.

As per the mission, he burned all of the corpses. No calls made it out to the police. No one would know until the staff ran themselves to exhaustion and made it to town on foot, for lack of undamaged cars. Police and representatives of Overwatch would arrive just before daybreak to see the chateau burning.

Nothing was recovered. Not even a finger was spared. The fire burned hotter than water could handle, so the fire brigade just had to watch it go. The staff swore people were shot but no gunshots were heard and there was no casings within a mile. They talked about a masked man, or was it a woman, walking to the house to burn it to less than rubble, but they had never spoken about why they were doing it.

He’d seen the fire catch proper when the plane had set down to take him away. It burnt bright. So bright. But he couldn’t stop thinking about that woman and the way she’d looked at him. She wanted him to know she wasn’t afraid and that really got him.

A man with a 76. A tinman trying to talk him down. A dead woman who showed off.

Was this not working? Why wasn’t this working?

This had to change. They had to get stronger together so why wasn’t he changing? How was he supposed to save-

Two clicks in the earpiece. He looked up.

It stared without eyes at him, listening without hearing, knowing without thinking.

_You can hear it, can’t you?_

The fire inside went down. The big empty yawned in his chest...

_You can hear that ticking in my chest like I can._

… and from that expanse he could hear an echo.

_Funny, that. Because I can hear something too. Funny..._

An echo of the metallic heartbeat.

_… ‘cause I can hear yours._

The machine said nothing.


	6. Intermission

The spartan room hadn’t changed much in a year. They’d given him a better bed once he’d gone on a few missions, changed it whilst he was in the field. Big bed, big tele that he never used, a laptop that was definitely monitored.

He knew it was monitored from the callers he got. He’d be sat about in his room, was most of the time if he wasn’t exercising or eating. It’d roll about to evening and someone would knock. First sign; superiors didn’t knock. Then they started to sit with him in the canteen. Sometimes they walked arm in arm with him, sometimes they’d leave him his space, but they all got to the door of his room.

Most days in the facility passed like a blur. On the more awake ones he’d get urges like any other young man. So he was told. These visitors that hung off his arms came into his room and got real close, how he’d imagine a girlfriend would act. Or a boyfriend, if his clearer days took him there. If they felt as sick as he did when they looked at his face for any lengthy period of time, they didn't show it. Professionals.

People kept giving him knowing looks and winks. Fuck that lot. He didn’t want to be dependent on Talon, he just worked for them. There were all sorts of nutters and sycophants around nowadays. A fucking circus of weirdos that Talon had brought into the fold, a bit like him. He could tell the newer ones ‘cause they saluted him. Who was he, their mum?

Still, there was one that came to the extra boxing classes that was alright. He called himself Charlie. He’d called him a ‘her’ the first time they’d met, Charlie looked about ready to take his jaw off. Tried it, and all. Caught him square in the chin, faster than he’d seen anyone throw a punch. He’d got one back out of pure instinct before the trainers broke them up and they’d got disciplinary.

They’d taken the punishment on the chin. Charlie was way newer than him, didn’t stand up to it well. No one did the first time they get blasted with freezing water.

‘Don’t say fucking “she” again, alright?’ Charlie told him in the hot showers afterwards. ‘Shit’s not a joke to me. I didn’t go under the knife to get called a girl.’ 

He’d figured it out what he was getting at eventually and nodded. He’d been out of the loop a long time, how was he supposed to know? Still, Charlie was alright. He came and sat across from him when they ate. The kid didn’t seem to mind him not talking much, which was alright.

Operative training, so he said. Something about a sort of graduate programme, like an officer school for Talon. They didn’t talk about pay. You didn’t really get paid in Talon. They just sorta… gave you stuff. He’d been there a good while, got a lot done for them in 12 months. Not that he really thought about it, nor did he think about how they treated him. They gave him a reason to put on the suit, and he did it. Simple as that.

Charlie thought of it a bit differently. He couldn’t help but listen when the kid started talking; it almost sounded like him before Talon picked him up. It made the fire stir in him, but not in the painful it did when he was on mission. It was exciting, sorta light and… he couldn’t word it.

He was good, no doubt about it. Not that he actually told Charlie. Words rarely went both ways, but that’s what was cool about Charlie; he understood his gestures, his looks, his silences. Never mentioned the face, not once.

After a few months he realised that this had become normal; them in the canteen, with each other, eating and talking in their own way. Going to training together. He was like a limpet at first, always following him to the same training circuits, trying to do the same reps as him. Little pest, but there was something… alright about it.

Talon was gearing up for a wide-spread offensive. He was privy to that sort of information, had been for a while. Sometimes a guard would walk him from his room to a meeting. He’d stand about in the back where it was dark and kept his mouth shut, with all the hangers-on and spies and rising stars.

Before he knew it the 18 month mark hit. Charlie asked if he’d witness the ceremony. He didn’t know what that meant but he went anyway. Probably better than jacking off and going to sleep again. Kid looked proud, standing there in his uniform and receiving his commission. Officer-class Special Operative.

He’d stepped in for a part. Just had to repeat a couple of words confirming that he vouched for Charlie’s abilities. Signed his name, or what passed for it nowadays, to say he’d witnessed it and given his verbal consent. It hurt like hell to say it loud enough to be proper for the ceremony, but Charlie looked happy enough about it. Which was alright.

Christ knows why, but he told Charlie about his dreams that night. The kid was still dressed in his officer’s uniform, sat on his bed, looking at home and shocked. Kinda scared, like he didn’t believe it. He didn’t blame Charlie. He knew he sounded like a total nutcase.

‘How long have you been dreaming like that?’

A while now. Not always identical, but similar.

‘Shit…’

That sounded about right. How else were you supposed to react to that? The psychiatrists told him it was trauma from his dad dying. He just wished it would sink into the empty.

He’d gotten upset. First time that’d happened in… ages. He couldn’t remember when it happened last. Charlie didn’t know what to do. Someone knocked on the door. He answered it without thinking about how he looked, just habit. It was one of the pretty girls. Her plastic smile dropped and she peaked inside.

She smiled again when she saw Charlie sat on the bed. She asked if he wanted one more. Charlie got up and tried to move her on, but this particular young lady had been here more than a few times. She knew how to get in his head, in good ways and bad ones. She got close and put her hand on his chest.

‘Why settle for one girlfriend when two can do so much more?’

He didn’t mean to snap. It just happened. He was sticking up for Charlie on his day. The fire leapt up and he went with it, grabbing the pretty girl by her clothes. Charlie broke them up and put him on his arse quicker than anything. The girl looked ruffled but not too shocked. Professional.

Charlie offered to stay in his room tonight. He said no. Charlie put up an argument but it was no use. The empty was back and it made him feel drained. He said well done to Charlie and the new graduate knew he was dismissed. The kid meant well but he needed to be alone.

He had the nightmare again that night. He felt like he was waking up paralysed. He tried to keep his eyes shut but the scratchy ticking noise got louder and louder. Metal ticks on the floor meant it was coming closer. He cracked open his eyes and saw it.

A towering mass of black looming over him. It saw through and into him with its no-eyes. Heard his thoughts through ears it didn’t have. He heard its heart scratching as it reached down to him, hands out ready to throttle to him.

He drew in a breath that tasted like blood. He was awake. There was no monster. There was no tinman. There was no mum, or dad, or Charlie. Just him.


	7. Chapter 7

The information Reaper wanted scrolled by faster than he could read. He stood at the back of the room, tense as anything and waiting. He’d only met Reaper a few hours ago, on the flight here, and already he didn’t like him. Not for his attitude or that ridiculous owl mask, but because he felt empty. It was hard to describe. Maybe that was why Charlie didn’t like looking at his mask?

“This is it,” Reaper said. “Get ready.” He started without a word. There was some information on Talon stored in an old government bunker. When the omnics attacked Germany, the humans lost a lot of ground fast. Word had it that some of the systems in one of the many written-off bunkers was salvageable, if you had the right tech.

And the plan was, if the system had the info, they take what they can and blow the rest. Reaper handled the former, and it made sense to only take a skeleton crew on an operation into civilian territory, so a single bombmaker could do the work of a whole demolitions team in a pinch.

He raided the base for all sorts of mundane shite people didn’t look twice at. The cleaning cupboards were always a good start. Bleaches, acetones, that sort of thing. He knew a dozen recipes off by heart and crossed them off and highlighted others in his head like revision cards as he found different bottles. 

The smell of a bomb workshop was foul. Sort of sterile, which he appreciated, but in a very nasty way. But he didn’t do this bit of his craft with the mask on; as safe as it made him feel, he couldn’t do with the lenses playing with his vision. It was worth his throat hurting if it meant keeping his hands.

“That will work?” asked a growl over his shoulder. He grunted very softly, not wanting to nod as he waited for the bleach to cook off and mixed the acetone in. It wasn’t very big, granted, but when you’re blowing up delicate systems, it didn’t exactly take a big blast.

A tiny whine emitted from Reaper’s belt. He looked up at the man questioningly.

“The perimeter’s been compromised. We’re not alone.” He took the two long shotguns propped against the desk and checked they were loaded. “Get it done,” he snapped. Even in the scarce light of the computer monitors, it made him shiver to see Reaper do that party trick of turning to smoke.

A couple of minutes later he could hear the tell-tale clatter of buckshot hitting concrete and the rattle of return-fire. He blocked it out as best he could, listening to his own laboured breath as he made to move the active compound into its casing.

Reaper was either out-numbered or just out-played, but either way the whole room was nearly levelled when a figure raced past the window in a blur. Thank christ they didn’t care to peek in through the wide glass panes, or else they would’ve been able to put a bullet in him before he’d even stood up.

It looked like there was just this one other person in the bunker with them, and Reaper was probably in pursuit. As quietly as he could, he held onto the desk and pushed himself up to see through the window into the dark concrete hallway.

Emergency lights were on and made everything look dull and red, but he felt his stomach lurch at what he saw; even in the low light, it was no problem at all to make out the man aiming his rifle down the hallway, back to him and totally oblivious to the bomb.

A 76.

Shit. It was him.

He couldn’t remember the next bit. It was like the space when you fall asleep, it must have happened, you just couldn’t recall. ‘Cause one minute he was peaking over his camping stove and checking the guy out, the next he was flooding the hall with flammable gel.

The guy reacted quicker than anything, checking over his shoulder for a fraction of a second before bolting around the corner and out of sight. He must’ve been raging or something ‘cause he was perfectly poised to ambush 76, but he managed to hit more or less everything but him. Clipped him on his jacket, though, that wouldn’t come off easily.

Reaper was shouting in his ear about the bomb, telling him to back off, but there was no way. He took off at a sprint around the corner and followed the tell-tale trail of smoke through the hallways.

The fire was in him again and hotter than he’d ever known it. He could see it boiling up from the bottom of his eyes and flood the lenses of the mask until it was all there was. He rounded another claustrophobic corner and found the source of the smoke.

The jacket was on the floor- Shit! He was ambushed a millisecond after he realised he’d been lured. A gun butt swung out from the dark and hit him flat in the chest. 76 was trying to take him down silently, non-lethal, but he hit the machine part.

He stepped back with the momentum and steadied the projector. The tongue of fire illuminated a head of stark white hair and a lattice of scars behind the visor before the man rolled heavily.

He was a second off immolating the guy when something kicked him hard in the back of the knee and he fell like a sack of shit. Charlie had hit him with that plenty and he knew to carry himself on one knee and keep fighting.

He squeezed the trigger as hard as he could, but even with his recovery and retaliation he only caught a glimpse of two figures fleeing around the corner. The fire behind his eyes boiled and he screamed. Really screamed. He ran blindly down the halls and never stopped burning. He squeezed the trigger until it ran dry, boots crashing through gel that burned against the suit, roaring his machine heart out until agony ripped through his neck. Tore something.

He faintly heard a bang and knew what he’d done. Reaper found him and dragged him out without a word, straight into the dropship and away. The fuel was still burning on his fatigues by the time he reached the ramp and he had to awkwardly douse himself with a chemical mixture.

He’d fucked it. The active compound in his makeshift bomb had cooked off and blown a hole in the wall furthest from the computer. The bunker kicked out tar-black smoke and it was assumed that the two hostiles escaped. They’d be all over once the flames died down in a few hours, and they’d get the harddrive, and the computer if it’d survived.

He felt empty. Fuck it. There was nothing in him now, just like his tanks. Burned out and useless.

Reaper didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. He’d brought an amateur who’d lost his cool. He’d asked him about why he went off the rails. He communicated it back as best he could, which wasn’t well, but Reaper seemed to get it. Maybe. Hard to tell. Who gave a shit?

Besides, he didn’t mention it after that. Maybe he’d seen something in his cracked speech. Not worth thinking about.

He trained hard after that. Charlie had to make do with even less words from him after a bit of surgery to fix his throat. He’d get stronger. Better. It was more than just 76. It was whoever was with him. It was every nutter who thought humans were safe so long as one tinman walked about.

He’d save them, whether they wanted to be saved or not. For their own good.

\--

There had been something animal about it. Morrison had heard it before. The pyrotechnician Reyes had brought with him to blow the hardware got the drop on him, and it was clear they were an amateur from the way they reacted, but that screaming… it had stuck with him.

“It was awful,” Tracer mumbled her agreement. “Like they were… hurt.”

Morrison knew what it was. He’d seen it in the soldiers, the ones who were too far gone. It was the sort of scream a man gave when he’d reached the end of his wits and lost control. PTSD, fatigue, loss of comrades, there was any number of causes for it. Whatever caused it, it was never a pretty result.

“Yeah. Talon really have themselves some new talent,” he said sardonically.

“I thought it was you at first,” Tracer admitted. “I thought Reaper had some new incendiary trap or something. I just heard this noise, like someone shouting through a speaker or a microphone, and it was just bouncing off the walls. I tried to find you as quick as I could and that one in the suit just ran straight past me. I almost reached out, try to put you out, you know? But it wasn’t you. They just tore straight past me like I wasn’t even there, totally caught up in it, covered in whatever was burning.”

Morrison grunted. “Did you get the asset?” Tracer produced the harddrive she’d spotted plugged into the terminal in the bunker and hand it over. Morrison plugged it into a small diagnostic computer on board their plane. It was well-protected, but they’d leaked the information about the bunker after all. They knew full well what sort of protection Reyes would bring along with him, and how to get around it.

In it, they’d found all the information the bunker had been keeping safe. It had been used by an international intelligence agency to accumulate information on Talon, and Morrison knew he’d come across the ideal bait. He kept his distance and watched until Reyes made his move, but in his eagerness to corner the assassin, he’d neglected certain other elements.

But now they’d seen what they were up against, and they had the hard drive. It was a list of known Talon agents, aliases, movement records, potential bases of operations, co-conspirators, potential financial contributors, enough to stage five or six hard months of raids off of.

“Something wrong, Commander?” Tracer asked when he’d frozen on one particular profile. She turned the laptop to get a better look and clicked her tongue.

“He’s young. Too young to be Talon.”

“I know him,” Morrison said slowly.

“Eh? You’ve met him and didn’t bring him in?”

“It was in London… has to be around two years back. There were agitators in London, there was potential for Talon involvement in stirring up anti-omnic sentiment.” He tapped the screen. “He was front and center amongst them.” He opened the related files and searched through surveillance pictures.

One stood out and Tracer’s face changed from faint concern to bitterness in an instant; a figure in a yellow hazmat suit silhouette against a burning statue, the monument to Mondatta.

“So he was the arsonist,” Tracer said softly. She scanned his name a few times and committed it to memory.

“He was with Reaper,” Morrison continued. “He may know something about Talon. He must’ve been picked up by them at some point and he’s got at least some training, so he’ll have to have been trained by them somewhere. We grab him, and we find Talon.”


	8. Chapter 8

_‘That’s weird. He’s one of the council, you know?’_

_‘Mm.’_

_‘Doesn’t take kindly to failures, especially on missions he stages himself. You must’ve caught him on a really really good day.’_

_‘Mm.’_

_‘Doesn’t it worry you? Even a bit? People who fuck it up as bad as that, no offence, tend to not stay part of the business for long. You catch my drift?’_

_‘Mm.’_

_‘It’s like talking to a rock with you sometimes, it really is. At least I worry about you. But you’re still here, so maybe there’s a reason. Maybe… Huh, maybe there’s a plan after all.’_

 

He thought back. It was almost impossible to remember back then. The time before the Talon compound hidden beneath the earth. The time before guards in scowling masks and the training and the medication, the time before the big empty and the fire, the time before he could put on the mask and escape all the shit inside.

But he remembered the anxiety. Didn’t get that no more. He’d been a cocky pissant then, strutting about in his dad’s suit like he was ten men. Part of the crowd, wanting to be part of something bigger.

It had come to him on a silver platter. It felt good to be home.

A core of plainclothes operatives surrounded him, who were in turn surrounded by the more hardcore activists. They steered the demonstration from its heart. By the time they met the enemy it wouldn’t matter if the edges flaked; they’d push out and lead from the front, show them that they didn’t have to take this shit from a government that didn’t care about them.

He wondered if any of that lot from the old group were here today. Probably. Not that he’d recognise them. They wouldn’t recognise him neither.

Most were wearing black, as per instructions, balaclavas and all. Some wore bike helmets, and ex-servicemen and women wore combat gear and overalls. They represented who they were, proud. It made it much easier to blend in, his hood drawn up and hooked into the top of the mask.

The electricity in the air and the chanting didn’t set him off like it likely would’ve done. Still, it was dark, and it somehow felt right to be here. Fitting.

They marched. The counter-protest was wear they thought they’d be. Victoria street, 8-lane cross junction that went into the deepest parts of London and over the Thames. An indistinct crowd holding anti-fascist banners and all sorts of other soppy shite. Blind, all of them. Made him angry, just a bit.

The police were there too. They were in every junction and every side street, uniformed officers in reflective coats mixed in with black-clad riot officers who scowled behind plastic splash masks.

Jeers went up from one side as an activist spat on the visor of a tinman officer and ran back into the crowd before the could nab him. People were starting to push and cheer like animals. The operatives and hardcores let them, encouraged them, getting them nice and riled.

Twenty metres from the stationary counter-protest and the hardcores brought the herd to a stop. Time to act. The activist were cheering loud as anything, but it went nice and quiet when the hardcores and their charge seeped through and into no-man’s land.

Each carried a piece. A shoulder, an arm, a hip, a leg. A head. Mockeries of human biology chucked on the concrete carelessly. The counter-protest started to get pissy, shouting and swearing at them with vitriol when they realised what they were seeing.

A hardcore took a megaphone out.

“What you see hear, brothers and sisters, is not a person!” he shouted at the crowd. Some kept shouting, but others quietened to hear their enemy speak. Good. It had to be said.

“A person is made of flesh and blood, like you and me!” He pointed to a counter-protestor. “As long as you have blood in your veins, you are not our enemies! Look, look at my leg. Gone. Blown off in India. And by who? By omnics!” The activists roared their support, and the opposition quietened. “They just took a bite out of me. I survived it. But who had to tell my sister that her little boy wouldn’t come home from Istanbul? Who had to tell the husband of my CO that the woman he married would have an empty casket when they fucking buried her, because the omnics didn’t leave enough of her to bury? Eh? Who? Who?!” He walked up to the opposition to scream in their faces. “Me! I did! People like me and you _suffered_ because of the omnic crisis. The omnics killed and tortured us because they are not human. They are machines who were programmed to kill. And we just fucking forgot! We forgot because it hurt too much to remember.” He pointed out a few adults in the crowd, the older ones who looked like they might’ve served. “You hurt, you hurt, you and you, and me. It hurt us and we wanted to forget. But we’ve done this to ourselves, and now the omnics are among us. Things like _that_ , things that you let hold your children, are the same things that killed our children in the crisis.”

The boos were picking up but it didn’t matter. The time for talking was almost done, and he found himself nodding along with what the man had to say. “Open your eyes, brothers and sisters. It hurts, but you’ve got to admit it to yourself; there is an enemy within. And we’re gonna burn them out!”

That was the queue. The dismantled omnic pieces formed a little effigy and scattered screams picked out amongst the opposition when he broke ranks and appeared in front of them.

He let the activists reach a fever pitch before setting the pieces alight. It wasn’t anything to him, just a little puddle, but it may as well have been the fires of hell itself for all the panic it caused. The opposition scattered instantly, and the police rushed in.

It was brutal. Worse than the first time by far, but it might’ve just been because there was more of both sides. Clubs and crowbars shook plastic shields and sallies saw honest men dragged into the mass of police. It was hard to tell who came off worse in the brawl.

The hardcores rallied people as best they could and herd instinct took control. The Talon operatives with him were veterans of the Iberian theatre, men he’d handpicked himself. They were fucking menaces in the ring, and they didn’t let him down here.

Line after line they broke through, leading the activists from the front, as revolutionaries and heroes did. He’d soften and scare the police with a jet of fuel and the operatives would rush it like nothing mattered. The wedge would smash through the middle and their brutality infected the bold rioters behind them. A crack became a breach, and a breach became a wave. Street by street, skirmish by skirmish, they were winning.

They were soldiers of Talon, in their physical prime, but christ did it get tiring to do this for half an hour. But sure enough, they found their target; the statue. A tinman had been destroyed here. Its statue had burned a time later.

Now, they were gonna level it. The operatives moved quick and set the demolition charges around the base of the tower whilst the hardcores held up their end and blocked up the streets.

Either the Metropolitan Police were getting lazy or just plain amateurs, because who ever took a shot at Montgomery was off by a good foot or so. A round whined off the statue’s base and they instinctively ducked. Some operatives clutched for their hidden guns but there was no need; the police marksman smashed into the pavement nearby, thrown from the roof of the tall flat opposite and their neck twisted grotesquely.

One chop of his hand sent the agents back to their work whilst he scanned the rooftops. It was dark but his lenses helped him pick out shapes of roof ledges in the dark. There was no one up there.

Did Talon send a reinforcement team? No, he picked the only operatives approved to be here. This was something else.

“Get it done,” he rasped at a whisper. His troops sounded off in curt replies. He heard a clicking. He looked around. He didn’t feel anything. But shit, were the police making light work of the activists now, no doubt a bit of glass or brick had gone off his mask.

Even over the sound of shouting and fighting, he could pick out a gunshot. The bang echoed. Rooftop, high up, not far enough to be affected too much by wind. Another two or three bangs, further off. The operatives caught it too, checking up from their work.

Some shit was going on, and if it wasn’t in the plan, it meant it was time to leave. Their exfil was some distance away so there was no time to waste. They didn’t waste time with sentiments either. They got themselves down a sidestreet sharpish and thumbed the detonator.

Debris flew into the crowd and smashed windows, and by the time the metal screamed as it bent and fell, his team was already off and away.

They bled out and disappeared into hiding holes, ready to leave the city in weeks or months time after further operations had been carried out. But he was headed for the river, and for the light watercraft waiting for him. Marauding cars and hooligans had taken care of the street lights so it was nothing but darkness and the smell of smoke as he hammered through the city.

His pack jolted and the tanks nearly hit the floor. The sudden change in weight made him stagger to a stop and he twisted to check. It was pitch black, obviously, but he could see one of the back straps had snapped. It was fine when he’d left…

“Going somewhere?” asked a voice. He wheeled and drew his handgun as he’d been trained to, sighting the location of the sound. A figure about his height silhouetted against the street lights wearing bright pants, some glowing tech on their chest.

“I think me and you need to have a talk, mate,” she said slowly. Cockney, wasn’t hard to hear. He’d heard of her, didn’t think he’d ever actually meet her. Bit of a celebrity, back when he’d watched the news. He didn’t reply.

“You know, we picked up your details outside of Nuremburg. We know you, so there’s no use in that,” she gestured with her sidearms to his mask. He didn’t say a word. “Do you know what you’ve done tonight? Do you know how many people are going to end up hurt, dead even, because of the things you’ve done?”

He took a side-step towards the water. She stepped with him. Shit, where was the agent in the boat, couldn’t they hear this shit going on?!

“Not happening mate. You’re coming with me and you’re gonna answer for this.” She was emotional, he could see it in her. She even took one of her two sidearms off of him to point back to the city. “That out there has bigger-”

Thyoom. His lenses freaked out as they caught the heat signature disturb the air for a fraction of a second. Whatever it was hit the flagstones between him and the woman, Tracer, and blew them to high hell. The blast made his legs go weird and he toppled back.

Tracer was gone sharpish, a blue racing stripe left in the air where she’d scarpered. His ears were ringing from the explosion, hostiles might still be around, who knew which one of them the shooter was aiming for-

Two clicks.

Time froze. The world screamed into focus. Distant yellow road lights lost their colour and turned grey. The Thames went quiet.

His breath was so loud in the mask and he felt his not-chest start to seize.

Shit. Stop. Breathe, calm.

He turned his head and looked over the rooftops. A scraping of metal emanated from inside him and forced itself into his ears.

There.

It was standing on the edge of a roof, a thin giant looming. Watching. Waiting.

 _Chick. Chick. Chick._ A distant scratchy pulse beating in time with the cold heart in him.

-

Charlie found him in the showers. Humiliating, but he felt so… wrong. He’d just sat there under the hot water for hours. Hadn’t even gotten out of the suit. Just got off the dropship, took the mask off, turned on the water, and sat.

He’d been dragged back to his room, under orders. Charlie had him eat something from the canteen in his room and just sat with him with the tele on quiet. It wasn’t certain which one actually out-ranked the other, but he just went with it.

At some point, his body had packed it in and sent him off to sleep, despite the therapy and conditioning and the… whatever they put in those tablets. The sleep was light. Kept on waking up and never remembered why, but Charlie was always there, sat on the pillow next to him, watching the tele like nothing was wrong.

It was almost enough to block out the sound of the heartbeat. Almost.


	9. Chapter 9

_‘The bow and arrow was used in the Bronze Age to goad the enemy into unwise action. What it did not kill, it drew out into the open to be killed. Do you understand what I am referring to?’_

_‘Overwatch. Not a big threat.’_

_‘Do not forget your place child, nor who you are talking to. I was arrogant like you once, and I was imprisoned for my miscalculation. Where you proved to Reaper you were a liability, I turned you into an asset. You played a key role in our plan.’_

_‘What plan?’_

_‘Overwatch now knows of the TERMINAL platform. They have gone underground out of fear. Do you see? Your vision is coming true; you are changing the world and Overwatch are running scared at the sight of you!’_

_‘But… the omnics are-’_

_‘Shut up. They are one and the same. I offered you the chance to be a weapon for Talon. A weapon does not question why or in what way it is used, it fulfills its purpose knowing that it is a means to an end. Be the bow. Now to your post. And if you ever talk to me that way again I will kill you, Talon or not.’_

 

The success in rallying anti-omnic sentiment in London had struck fear all over Europe. Old hatreds were reignited and people were acting out on every little whim.

Seemed… mad. The news made it look like the end of the world. People just turning on each other for daft shit.

Still, he’d been offered a reward and Charlie wouldn’t let his balls go until he said yes. It took another week of heavier drugs and a whole day lost to anaesthetic, but the cosmetic surgery was child’s play to these surgeons on base.

Got him looks in the canteen. People looked sour at him when he looked like a bit of burnt meat, now they looked proper terrified he looked borderline normal. Lines along his cheeks that circled behind his neck marked where the real cheekbones met the artificial skin plates of his neck and chin.

They had the same smooth, cold texture of his chest. Didn’t look in the mirror out of habit, but at least Charlie had closed his trap. His callers always took the time to remark on how handsome he looked now. He looked a weirdo, but whatever helped them do their job, he supposed.

“Not often you pay attention to that,” Charlie observed across from him in the canteen. He’d been watching the canteen screen more often lately. “I understand you’re to thank for our recent success.”

“China?”

“Yeah, dead easy mate. The government’s champing at the bit to tear itself to pieces and the rebellions scarcely needed our help to start taking land. It’s all shaping up pretty good. You’ll be out of a job soon if you keep making it so easy for us, old timer.”

“Mm.” Old. Little shite. He wasn’t even out of his early twenties. Charlie tittered through a mouthful of food and wiped his hands off.

“Gotta get ready. Seeing you at the pad yeah?”

“Mm.”

Charlie was leaving. Being re-deployed in another base that could use his abilities better, so it was said. Not surprising. This facility had been hitting so many targets, good news was the standard. Talon had to maintain pressure everywhere, so they were moving an officer ace to a struggling area.

Felt… weird. Felt shit, frankly. They didn’t gush over each other, not even close. But it was familiar and… Charlie made it feel like… normal. He couldn’t think of the words. Fucking drugs.

A surprisingly small crowd had gathered for the company’s send-off. The officers were given their space. Charlie always told him he had a good poker face, not that he actually meant to, but he was sure he was giving away how he was feeling.

“Don’t fucking cry,” Charlie said quietly with a smirk. “Just call or something.” He hesitated at that. “It’s been good. You watch your back, yeah? I’ll bring you back some souvenirs.”

“Be careful, Charlie.” It had felt like a kitten crawled out of his mouth, little pin-pricks of pain in his throat at talking, he didn’t even intend to say something. But that had come out anyway. Charlie looked a bit knocked by that, but he smiled that really… that crooked smile. It was…

“Yeah. Yeah I will do, don’t worry about it. See you around.”

The eyes on them felt heavy. People on base watching exactly how they would say goodbye. He wasn’t deaf to whispers, but if Charlie didn’t rise to it as senior officer, then neither would he as an operative. He couldn’t… give him a hug or whatever, they had to be professional and that. Still… felt a bit cold to leave it at a nod.

Then he was gone.

And as the dropship wing disappeared over the horizon, he felt the embers in his stomach stoke up some. When he closed his eyes that night he actually prayed that he’d see that great stalking _thing_ come for him. He’d reach up and rip it to pieces.

Wait for it to come throttle him and tear out that fucking heart once and for all.

That _awful_ beating that clicked in time with the space inside him.

\---

Those embers kept on burning for weeks, and he still felt them in Greece.

They’d stormed the parliament and took everyone there. It was a televised debate on a big decision. It meant war one way, or a slow death the other. Every bigwig and suit was there.

Felt a bit like Guy Fawkes. Was it Fawkes? No, Fawkes was the one everyone talked about, but the bloke with the actual idea for the bombing of British parliament was some other fella. Shit that was annoying, what was his name?

Letting his mind go off on a wander made it easier to ignore the men begging. They were fat and wealthy, faces red as they screamed like children. Him and his operatives had stormed in and started grabbing people.

Bodies of the armed security were left where they fell as an example. Beat anyone who resisted, shot the real trouble makers. Only a couple though. This was bigger.

They screamed alright, but they didn’t half go quiet when the bomb vests went on. They gawped at each other like they couldn’t believe it. The translator spoke on a loop to get through their flabby aged skulls; tamper with it and you die. Resist and you die. Comply, and you will be freed. So they sat whimpering in the middle of the parliamentary floor, huddled like scared cattle, plastic explosives flashing on well-made suits and dresses.

It wasn’t the sounds of a fight that tipped him off to a problem, it was the lack of it. The Greek military had been told to back down but they shouldn’t’ve done. So when people weren’t responding to hails, he knew straight away they’d been infiltrated.

He couldn’t raise command. Were they blowing the suits or no?

Would he get reprimanded if he just blew the tinmen that had wormed their way into government?

More time to think on that later. SWAT always ran scared at the sight of the fire, but it didn’t give him a lot of room tactically to work with. He’d burn the place down quick enough though, so he’d have to be a bit conservative.

The patrol was gone. They were supposed to be in the rotundra should anything go wrong. The whole atrium was empty. Not even a firefight, no casings on the floor, just gone. He blink-clicked the markers on his lenses to ping their earpieces. No response.

The tanks hissed and the primer flame jumped to life.

\---

In another life, he might’ve been a good soldier. This one reminded Lena of someone she had known a long time ago. A man who ran ahead and put himself in harm’s way because that’s just where he felt he had to be.

In another life… in another life this lad probably would’ve been like his dad, smart kid born into a smart family doing a smart high-paying job.

But this wasn’t another life. This was here and now, and Talon had taken hostages and made their demands. Overwatch activities were strictly illegal, but the commander outside had promised to turn a blind eye to Lena’s presence if she saved a parliament that had fought tooth and nail to secure peace in the mediterranean ever since the Omnic Crisis.

He was walking cautiously to the open doorway she hid in. Even in that get-up, he walked softly, and if she strained her ears she could hear the gentle rushing of air through a ventilator.

She rolled from covered and fired. His footwork was good and he threw himself aside. She blinked down the hall and caught him again. The rounds that streamed from her machine pistols hit the material of the boiler suit and flattened. Damn, they didn’t pierce! But they did stagger him, and he tore through the attached offices of the atrium to escape her line.

That’s when he started the fires, and it marked a ticking clock for Tracer’s mission. He burned the papers and desks as he ran, knocking stuff into her path to make a gap. He bobbed and weaved and she started to lose sight of the black figure through the smoke.

He hammered through a door and disappeared. A blink saw her rushing through smoke and out into the hall. He was waiting for her, she could hear the hiss of the flamethrower on the left. She dashed out and wheeled her pistols out- The weapon was on the floor, alone.

Lena’s head snapped back and air rushed out of her as the operative, Firebrand, tackled her hard from behind. She fell and he smashed her wrist off the floor two, three, four times until she let go of the gun. She fired the other into the drywall and showered them in dust but he didn’t let up, frantically trying to prize her guns away as she thrashed.

A fist slammed into the back of her head and the world shook for a second. Instinct took over her and a wriggle activated her blink. She rocketed along and floor and skinned her chin, making Firebrand grunt as he lost his purchase. He fell flat on his arse and dragged himself up as Tracer did.

He came at her again with controlled pace and it took all her wherewithal to keep up. He threw punches and grapples like a machine, moving lightning fast and snapping out hits faster than Lena could turn away.

The machine whined in protest on her chest as it strained to keep her anchored in time, but stopping for a moment meant letting him get closer. He was a competent fighter, no doubt, but she could see his anger. It made him predictable. As long as she was nearby he was wasting energy in hitting nothing and grabbing at limbs she could easily pull out of his grasp.

It was turning into a tired brawl after a few minutes. A bad sight but Lena needed to wear him down before going in. Whilst they didn’t let the other near the guns, he got a couple of good knocks on her and he hit like a train, and his throws were aggressive and committed.

But she didn’t get through the RAF without proving herself more than once. She punished mistake with smashes to the face and crotch, and it wasn’t long before they were both wincing and wheezing.

Winston’s arrival couldn’t have been timed better. Just as Firebrand was committing to another rush, the ape leapt the full length of a corridor to land between them and roared.

Talon had been using Firebrand as a terror weapon. Soldiers that had accolades and merits turned pale in the face when they saw fire used offensively. It spoke volumes of the man wielding it. It took a particularly nasty sort to intentionally give the enemy a painful death, and his reign of bombings and shit-stirring had been a thorn in Winston’s side for a long time now.

Even so, it wasn’t surprising to see him falter and stop in the face of a great roaring ape. But he recovered quickly and confirmed a fear of Tracer’s. He dropped defensively low and pointed at Winston with one hand, the other clenched around a plastic trigger he took out of his suit.

“Don’t even think about it!” Tracer said. She took a step forward. He changed to point at her and took a step back. A warning, _stay back or they die_.

“Give it up, you’re surrounded,” Winston added. They split and slowly crept up on him. The mask over his face was devoid of any and all humanity, but she could see his concern in the way he moved.

“This doesn’t have to end with more dead. Disarm the trigger and we can talk. I know you understand, drop it.”

Firebrand raised the detonator higher as if to emphasise its importance. A red LED glowed angrily; if the trigger was released, the politicians would die. A threat he seemed to want to make clear, as he had backed himself against a wall of the room he and Tracer had ruined in their brawl.

“You lived on the green, didn’t you? On the east side?” Tracer asked. “I know the house. It burnt down, that was you wasn’t it?” The bug-like lenses of the mask fixed unwaveringly on her. “Chemical fires are hard to put out, they couldn’t save it. The fire department spent all night and the day after looking for you. Young lad, house gone in a fire, no sign of a body. The papers ran your picture for a while. People knew your mum, and when they found out about the house, the whole of London was sad at the thought of the whole family going. Too much of that’s already happened.”

Winston gave her a wary sidelong look and Firebrand’s glove squeaked from how hard he was crushing the detonator, but Tracer didn’t relent.

“What did Talon offer you, huh? You know, I bet they thought they’d struck gold with you, smart young lad, no parents. Did they welcome you with open arms or did they make you jump through hoops first before they let you in?” She and Winston crept closer, but Firebrand didn’t seem to notice. He was drinking in every word. “Open your eyes kid, Talon are using you. They took you because you were easy to manipulate and they made you afraid of the people they hate, can’t you see that? What you’re doing, it isn’t right. Those people you’re holding hostage are good people!”

A quiet hiss emitted from the mask, something that might have been a rasp of hoarse breath, but it was impossible to tell. Winston received a signal from Athena and made his move. He span the modified shield generator across the office space like a discus and it popped and fizzed as it flew, finally blossoming into an orb of snapping sparks. The effect was instant, and Firebrand convulsed and twitched violently.

A growling gurgle escaped a malfunctioning speaker within the mask before he fell limply to the floor, the deactivated detonator falling harmlessly from his grasp. Tracer could see the furious effort he put into moving, but it did him no good. Winston hefted him over a broad shoulder and the covertly slipped out of the building as the distant sound of police storming in disappeared.


	10. Chapter 10

_‘Greece was a failure. The politicians continue to lull the Arab states into co-operation and I hear that not only was an entire strike team of some repute and experience lost, but the enhanced operative leading them was also captured.’_

_‘Right on all accounts, Maximilien. It is a wonder that you needed to actually speak with me at all.’_

_‘Cut the facade Ogundimu, you are plotting something. Your lack of transparency risks the success of the whole organisation... Your silence does not fill me with confidence, Doomfist the Successor. Nor does that smile.’_

 

The recall brought back memories for Lena. Mostly good. Some tenuous. The single grim interrogation chamber in one of the old secret Blackwatch facilities in Sicily was definitely a bad one. The whole feel of Overwatch always felt very open and noble to her, but Blackwatch… this was a different calibre.

Winston had tried his best to soften the edges with some tables and decent chairs, but the harshly lit concrete box beneath the ground with a mysterious drain in the middle couldn’t hide what it was.

Ziegler had been running relief in northern Egypt at the time and had come by after some discussion with Winston as a favour. Some veterans had heard the recall and had forced their way into the effort as volunteers, who now stood in formal plainclothes around the base, trying to look both intimidating and armed, yet inconspicuous.

Two stood outside the bulkhead to the chamber that held Firebrand. Lena and Winston watched their captive sitting stock still in the chair. It was a rigid metal frame, uncomfortable to sit in, with clasps for the shoulders, shins, ankles, forehead, even each individual knuckle. Lena shuddered to think of what they were used for.

But their captive didn’t complain. In fact he hadn’t said a word. His eyes told plenty though, in the rare moments he’d look up. A smouldering anger simmered behind the blank expression, the kind of feeling reserved for the people you knew you could never get along with. For the most part he’d sat there, wordless, almost motionless, staring at the table as if he couldn’t hear them.

Frustrating, to say the least.

Lena was brought back to the moment when Angela sighed.

“The biometrics confirm what we expected and more,” she reported curtly. “Male, early twenties, obvious biomechanical alteration. Respiratory, circulatory, and parts of the digestive system have all been heavily modified with biomechanical equipment. Clear signs of cosmetic alterations, but samples suggest scar tissue around the face. Then there was the blood work-up.” She sighed again and shook her head before continuing.

“Markers in the blood suggest hormonal imbalances. Traces of sedatives and psychostimulants were also found, leading me to believe that his entire chemical make-up has been changed. If I had to guess, therapeutics lend to a docile nature that is open to suggestion, whilst being deprived of such therapeutic agents lead to intense aggression.”

“Like in Germany,” Lena added quietly, thinking back to the screaming, blazing figure that tore past her in the bunker.

“Indeed. With what you told us about your run-in with Amelie Lacroix, it is not unlikely that this man is the next step in Talon’s efforts to alter the human psyche. I looked into the electrical disturbance you noted, Winston. Clearly I do not have access to MRI or x-ray facilities, but it would seem that his enhancements span to the trachea and vocal cords. Again, speculation plays heavily, but I believe his voice has been altered to enhance his speaking capacity, potentially even interacting with the respirator mask you brought in.”

Their guest had been stripped of his protective suit on arrival. Winston’s hulking strength had kept him secure when they moved him inside, but once he was free of the ape’s massive grasp and into the hands of the volunteers, he turned into an animal. One man had to be checked for infection for a vicious bite wound on his arm, and another woman was being investigated by a first aider to see if she’d gotten a fracture in her skull. Firebrand’s hand was still red raw from that, but if the potentially broken or fractured knuckles hurt him, he didn’t show it.

It had taken two tasers to shut him down fully, and even though Lena felt a black anger towards the terrorist, it hurt a human part of her to hold the taser as it clicked and snapped relentlessly, forcing the helpless Talon operative to convulse painfully as he was stripped of his clothes like… like an animal.

They’d given him an old jumpsuit found in a spare room. He didn’t fit it, but that wasn’t a care for the men whose comrades were already injured by the psychopath they were guarding.

“So… who’s going to do it?” asked Winston. Morrison said he was coming but they couldn’t just wait. They had no idea how hard Talon would fight to get the kid back, if they would even fight at all. They had to find the hidden base, and fast.

“I will,” said Lena.

\---

He’d been here for days. At least it felt like days. This was where Overwatch brought people to have their teeth and nails ripped out until they confessed. Blackwatch. Scandal of the century.

These weren’t Blackwatch. They were a doctor, a mascot, and a fucking monkey.

Come what may, he knew he would never give them a thing about Talon. Him, he knew he was dead, they knew everything already. They’d told him his name, his kin, their places of work, his mum’s deployment zones, everything. They knew _everything._

 _But not Charlie_. That’s what he kept telling himself. Talon roughed him up bad to prepare him for stuff like this, and he knew that no matter what they did he would never tell them about the base. ‘Cause the base meant Charlie, and ratting Charlie would mean him being in prison. Or dead. Wasn’t gonna happen.

Tracer. Felt weird to say that. Tracer was a household name, Tracer was the grinning idiot mascot of Overwatch back in the day. Now she was here, trying to be tough. Trying to be scary. Hard to be scared when you’d had your skin melted off once before.

They taunted each other. It was arguments, plain and simple. She didn’t interrogate him, she ranted. Like a child. And he’d sit there and not pay attention, maybe put out a word or two to show just how much he wasn’t arsed. That got her goat and she stormed out. Bint.

Today, for the second time in all his Talon life, he raised his voice. They were arguing about motives. She said he was an idiot. He called her the same. Embarrassing, because he actually got into it.

“I’m not talking about omnics mate, I’m talking about London!” she snapped suddenly at one point. It surprised him. She hadn’t done that yet. “Almost two hundred and fifty people are dead because of you! A residential home was burnt out and they couldn’t get the old people out in time, those are real deaths that are happening right now and they’re your fault!”

“Wasn’t me.”

“You don’t get it do you you little-” she was almost screaming and had to reign herself in. Was her fire going as strong as his?

“No YOU don’t get it!” he shouted back.

Everything went quiet. He tasted copper and his eyes instinctively watered at the tightness in his throat, but the fire that started when Charlie left finally boiled over.

“Of course you don’t fucking get it because you’re here like a rat! You failed, Overwatch failed. People die every day because of omnics and it was you who half-arsed the jo-” He hacked and coughed, throat seizing to stop him choking on thick bloody mucus. He spat messily on the overalls. “Still there. Still killing people. You called it a day and fucked off, left innocent people to die. I’m helping. Hurts, but helps.”

The plastic pipes rattled and buzzed horribly to keep him from choking. Shit. The shouting had knocked something important out of place. The bile got forced into his mouth and he winced at the sour taste of acidic fluid that no human body made naturally. It filled his mouth and oozed between his teeth like an engine kicking out oil… Like… like a machine-

“You actually believe that, don’t you?” she said. She was standing, not looking at him.

It was hard to breathe. He was suffocating. The emergency hardware kicked in. He sounded like an iron lung. Air was hissing into him and his voice came out without his tongue moving, scratchy and metallic, coming out of emitters built into his jaw and hidden beneath the fake skin.

“The truth. People died. You didn’t. I died. Then Talon. I was dead, hurting, burning. Then I wasn’t.” She looked at him. He looked at her. Only Charlie looked at him like that. Like she was listening. “Scared. Burns. And then up. Alive. Not me, not whole.” Pointed to his throat, his jaw, where the not-voice was coming from. This was secret intel. Shit why was he crying? Fuck. Why?! “Not human. Not alive. Back to help. Innocent, save. Bo-Borrow time. Not… Not… Not… me.”

\--

He was a scary thing to look at, her arsonist. His pictures from before Talon made him look totally normal, unremarkable even. They’d shaved his head clean, and the lines along his arms, cheeks, chest, stomach, it all meant massive surgery. Angela had been right; they’d pulled him inside out, dumped what they didn’t like, and put in a solider.

His eyes were dark circles, like he was always recovering from a fight. They were the only thing about his immediate appearance that looked genuine. The too-perfect synthetic bits made him look healthy and flawless, the lower lip red and healthy, the upper organic and chewed from stress.

He was rigid in his chair and those were definitely tears on his cheeks. He was trembling and his jaw was locked awkwardly, but that horrid metal voice spoke his thoughts for him. It was like listening to his soul.

Angela rushed in, knowing the danger signs when she saw them. He would’ve been seizing aggressively if his body hadn’t been locked to the chair. Spit and a dark oily slick bubbled out of his lips.

He was dying. Right there, in that chair. She could see he was failing to breathe. But it was his eyes, they just completely froze her.

No more glassy lenses. Not a reflection. Two human eyes.

Two pleading, human eyes.


End file.
